Arlington man pleads not guilty to child pornography charges

Friday

Aug 29, 2014 at 3:00 PMAug 29, 2014 at 3:41 PM

By Spencer Buellsbuell@wickedlocal.com

An Arlington man charged with possessing multiple images of child pornography was ordered held on $20,000 bail Friday in Cambridge District Court in Medford.During his arraignment Friday, Zachary Monte, 27, pleaded not guilty to the charges, which were brought by the Attorney General's office, with the help of the Arlington police.Acting on a search warrant Thursday night, police "looked through [Monte's] phone and found a significant number of images of children under the age of 18 being sexually abused," said Nancy Rothstein, assistant attorney general in the cybercrime division.Monte admitted to possessing the images and confessed he began developing an interest in "taboo pornography" about one year ago, Rothstein said.Police arrested him Thursday night and held him on $10,000 bail at the State Police barracks in Medford, and family members bailed him out that evening. The court added an additional $10,000 to his bail Friday morning.He was also ordered to wear a GPS bracelet, to stay away from children and areas where there are young children and to stay off the Internet. Investigators are analyzing his cell phone and computer.Monte's home on Renfrew Street is less than half a mile away from the Dallin Elementary School.Monte may also face distribution charges, Rothstein said. He is not accused of contacting or abusing children."It appears to be in the realm of viewing pictures and potentially uploading pictures, but nothing beyond that," said Monte's court-appointed attorney Jonathan Spirn.An investigation into Monte's activities began after police received a tip from Twitter that an account holder was uploading child porn images using the service, and that messages were exchanged form the account related to the images, Rothstein said.Monte was described as a plumber, an Arlington High School graduate and someone who had studied at Worcester State College.Months later, the blogging site Tumblr reported a user was posting suspected child porn to a blog, she said. In both cases, police tracked an IP address back to a computer in the home Monte shares with his mother and father.Social networking sites and search engines in recent years have reportedly been alerting authorities when users share images flagged as child pornography using their services.